HEALTH & LIFESTYLE
Chasing the Sandman: Ambien Zombie at War With InsomniaTHE DEEP SOUTH 29 January 2010 |
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4:34 am
I'm sitting on the edge of the bathtub clutching a bottle of cheap wine.
Troubled thoughts swarm.
What if my parents get sick? Is there enough money in the account? What about the insurance? Is that smoke I smell?
I live a peaceable life. Never been into drugs or drinking. Very health-conscious. Got an easy-going wife. I don't know why alien thoughts barrage me in the night. But they do.
You are a complete failure thus far. Things only get worse from here. Nothing ever goes right. God never liked you anyway.
Which is why I am sitting on the bathtub chasing Ambien with alcohol. The prescription label explicitly warns against this. It's OK. I'm something of an expert.
**
In the last ten years I have obsessively studied the treatment of sleep disorders. Insomnia is Chinese handcuffs. The harder you try to escape, the more you become enslaved.
I tried good sleep habits. No caffeine or stimulants six hours before sleep. Wind down. Go to bed at the same time every night.
I explored natural remedies. Valerian, Chamomile, Melatonin, Kava. Piractem. 5-HTP. Meditation. Guided Imagery. James Earl Jones reading Deuteronomy. None of this helped. So I turned to the pills.
A psychiatrist friend slipped me some Doxepine from her stash when I was in grad school. My first prescription sleeping pill.
"It's like a mega Benedryl," she said. "Very safe. Cheap too."
I took one, passed out upside down on the bed and for twelve hours straight sank to the bottom of the midnight sea.
It never worked that well again. This is the problem with sleep medications. The law of diminishing returns. What works well tonight may not work so well tomorrow.
I used to do a little
then the little didn't do it
so the little got more and more
Most over-the-counter sleep aids are simply Benedryl. An night-shift ER doc told me recently that alcohol with Benedryl works consistently well for him. Nothing works consistently well for me.
A word on alcohol: The sleep it brings is poor quality. It is stage one sleep; shallow and broken, just below the surface. Liquor is not considered an effective treatment for insomnia.
Valium is highly addictive. A gospel singer gave me some on a tour bus years ago. I climbed into my bunk and crashed through seven states. The sleep was extremely sweet. I never took it again.
I dreamed last
night I went
to a city
called
Glory
Ambien is America's most popular sleeping pill. It is the only medication approved for middle-of-the-night insomnia. I don't have a problem going to sleep -- just staying asleep. Sometimes I wake up shook by evil visions and phantom fears.
Like a balloon into the night sky, Ambien floats my brain away.
lamp posts and lampreys
singing needled songs
I long for
yet not loud
farewell monkeyhands
I shall live again with
the marlins in the stars
six more eclipses
and I shall live
again
I do not recall writing that poem. Nor eating half a box of chocolate Special K. Or stashing my pajamas in the freezer.
After a few years the effect became blunted. I can only take it occasionally now.
My favorite sleep agent is Lunesta. It gives me a good 6 hours of sleep. At once a week I haven't had any reduction in potency as yet.
Lunesta is expensive and the generic remains several years from the market. It's a milder hypnotic than Ambien. You'll get a little of the buzz but it won't be angel wings and ice cream in your nightpants.
Hear her voice
calling my name
sound so deep
in the dark
Trazedone makes me lethargic and wired. That's a miserable combination.
Halcion is a hypnotic. Tommy and Nikki sang its praises in The Dirt, crushing the pills and snorting it with cocaine. Zombie Dust they called it. Half a milligram of Halcion is 16 times stronger than 1 mg of Xanax.
Strange stuff, Halcion. It affects different people in different ways. I've yet to experience anything of Crue-worthy decadence but it does lull me pleasantly back to the land of slumber.
name dropping no-names
glamorize cocaine
Xyrem is GHB. The date-rape drug. Insurance rarely covers it. Doctors are reluctant to prescribe. It costs a lot of money. It is supposedly non-addictive. The sleep it brings is lush; deep and restorative.
Daydream
I fell asleep
beneath the flowers
Generally prescribed for anxiety, Klonapin unlocks my mind so I can drift back to sleep again. It comes in a grape flavor that dissolves, no water needed.
Klonapin is considered safer than its cousins Xanax and Valium but Stevie Nicks still called it "A hell of a lot harder to kick than coke." Consider that a warning.
For years now I've been seeing a Vanderbilt sleep doc who looks like the half-brother of Mark Twain and Albert Einstein. One of the best in the country I've been told. We've worked out a rotating arsenal of medications to hopefully keep the effects fresh and the chance of addiction slim.
Ambien 10mg - no more than once a week.
Lunesta 3mg w/ Benedryl - once a week.
Halcion .25 - no more than three a month.
Klonapin 1mg - same.
This leaves me three or four drug-free nights a week. Sometimes this works, sometimes not. Each person has a different emotional and physical chemistry. You have to find what works for you.
**
Heath Ledger died trying to sleep. Anna Nicole died trying to sleep. Michael Jackson died trying to sleep. Elvis Presley died trying to sleep.
The bathroom is a safe place. Blacked-out windows. Cold and dark.
One last pull of wine. Mingling with the bitter pill beneath my tongue. Faster to the bloodstream that way.
The owl
says
I'm nearly
gone
I stand from the bathtub and brace myself against the wall. Racing thoughts slow and slur together.
nevermoremonkeyhands
Stumble to the Secret Room. Pallet on the floor. The amber lamp. Theta waves and thunderstorms on loop. Tallithim like a huppah over the bed.
Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai E..ch...ad
Five minutes, ten. The little light behind my brain begins to glow, its heat flowing through me, warm and wonderful and wonderful
and wonderful.
All is well, all will ever be well.
goodnite
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i hear you jm blaine
Whoa! That was fast.
Thanks Ben,
Somebody told me not long ago
that we really don’t need to be fixed
as much as we need to be heard.
I was sort of afraid if I posted something like
this I might get a lot of
“Have you tried hot milk & Dristan?”
“Count to a hundred & forty-seven backwards in Hindi. It works for me.”
“I got hypnotized by a guy in the outlet mall kiosk and have slept like a baby ever since.”
Sometimes you admit to a problem and everyone’s a fixer.
It’s nice for someone to just say “Hey man, I hear you.”
I’m not a physician
or a physician’s assistant
or even a magician’s assistant
but if you have any questions
on sleep issues
I’ll try to answer them best I can.
Also, just for
fun
there’s five song lyrics
above
(six really)
Name the songs and artists
and get a
JMB/TNB Ambien Star.
I have some old books on tape if you need them.
Why thank you Johnny.
I had Johnny Cash reads the Bible
on tape and just about the time I’d be
falling asleep it would get to the end and
made that big clicking sound off and I would wake up.
James Earl Jones reads
the Bible was on CD.
If that didn’t do it
I’m not sure what would.
Lots of sex and violence in the Bible,
maybe I should be listening to Seuss.
Alcohol puts me to sleep really easily, but like you said, it’s not always the best sleep. Sometimes it is - with a little booze. But more than a beer or two and I wake up about 4am and then sleep in 20 mins fits after that. Smoking (I won’t say what, I’m a respectable teacher) puts me into a deep sleep but it’s hard to wake up, even nine hours later. Valium and xanax work alright, but the same problem.
Luckily I’ve never had extended sleeping problems. Just now and then - once every few months. But they’re a bitch. I can see why people go nuts after getting insomnia, or why people write books and films about it.
To be honest, though, I owe most of my best writing to insomnia. I think that when I can’t sleep it means my brain is working on stuff that I’m only partially allowed to see… Because sometimes I’ll just sit up in bed and realise I’ve worked out a whole story, and I get up and write it.
Which seems to be what’s happened to you here. It probably isn’t of much comfort when you’re desperate for sleep, but you evidently know how to write at the wrong hours. (Or the right hours if you’re Hunter Thompson.)
Ah you know I’ve never tried, um - smoking.
In the mood I wake up in I can’t write anything usually but rants
about how much I hate the world.
Sometimes I write and it’s OK but when I wake
up with the black dogs i would just about
hit myself in the heat with a hammer to knock out…
Smoking (of any kind) never really helps me sleep. Valium does. Xanax or Lorazapan or any of that kind of thing, yes. But you have to be so freaking careful. It won’t work anymore if you take it too often. I’m on a rotation regimen similar to yours, though a little less hardcore, Jim. I take over-the-counter stuff a couple nights a week, and then the real sedatives a couple nights, and on the weekends if I have a few drinks I can fall asleep okay but, like Ben, I’m up by 4am and that’s it. Drinking makes it worse, really, but because in my case (like Marni below) my problem is usually FALLING asleep rather than staying asleep, it can be seductive cause it puts you out fast and relaxed. But when I drink it’s the only time I ever wake up early of my own volition and that sucks. Plus I’m easily hung over. I don’t have the physical heartiness to use alcohol with any real gumption. Ah, Valium. Man, love that stuff. Such an amazing sleep, and fun before you fall into it. I don’t even want to think about Halcion. That sounds way, way too seductive.
Isn’t that existential the way pills work?
I remember a guy in rehab told me
“If they could just come up with a Xanax that worked like
Xanax all the time and you never got hooked….”
I mean you could do a philosophy thesis on that right there.
Halcion actually isnt as seductive as Valium.
Valium is the best.
That wonderful weight.
jmb,
By that did you mean
in the HEAT of the moment
or
hit yourself in the HEAD with a hammer?
Just wondering.
Oh. And you hang with the totally wrong kind of dogs.
Oh those poor devil dogs of the night.
They bark and bark and bark.
Head.
I think we have opposite problems. Well, not quite opposite.
I have trouble sleeping at night. I do not, however, have trouble sleeping during the day. Nor do I have trouble staying asleep.
Since I’ve been out of work again, I’ve been sleeping from 6:30 am to 2:00 pm. That’s about eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. I have also been known to catch an extra 2 hours between 6-8 pm. But at the normal time? Nothing.
Even if I’ve been awake for 24 hours straight, I can’t seem to fall asleep at, say, 1:00 am.
Which is why I also find myself up at 4:00 am hating myself.
See I love 4 am.
I despise anything after 4:30 am though, that horrible hour when night turns to morning.
I sleep well during the day as well but it isnt really practical.
I can’t say I understand, because I’m one of the lucky ones who never fails to sleep. But I do hear you. My ex husband was a chronic insomniac and it nearly drove him insane.
He chased sleep with a bottle of red wine every night and still the sleep eluded him. I think he resented me for my ability to sleep easy and long.
I remember hearing that catching fifteen minutes of the light at sunrise is the best remedy for easy sleep, but who wants to be up every morning at dawn to try that?
Oh JMB - you, more than most, deserve to have restful and peaceful sleep.
Well thank you for saying that.
I do like going to bed just as the sun peeks through the dark
but as you say - who can stay up that long to see it?
Funny that I woke at 3 am to read this. The turtle tank is buzzing. Poured some strawberry soda. Angry at the dark for having no real light. A slight headache from no dinner. Wondering if it’s going to be cold on the living room couch if I just lay down here and try to sleep.
Ah see, you know what I love?
The light over the stove at 3 am.
Dark light.
Your insanity is inspiring, understanding.
Well we’re all insane together you know.
11, there have been times when I had been ready to claw out my eyes and yelling at my brain Go to sleep you son of a bitch!
The worst was a week-long stint where I think I got maybe six, seven hours of real, proper sleep. Sleeping pills did nothing; they bounced off me like I was bulletproof - I’d sleep for maybe twenty minutes then snap awake again, and spend the next day in a state of nauseous, surreal fatigue because the drugs were still in my system.
That being said, I really want to experiment with polyphasic sleep some day.
Good luck, amigo. It’s a real son of a bitch.
Polyphasic? Is that the sleep in twenty minute spurts?
Writers are notoriously thin skinned
and we think too much.
That doesnt work well for sleeping.
oh, 11.
I have had trouble sleeping my whole life.
I’ve got all the sleep disorders, RLS, PLMD, The Cramping Thing They Haven’t Named Yet that is the next step in RLS’s progression.
I take so many medications.
Lots haven’t worked.
They gave me hydrocodone and I vomited for hours.
That was not restful.
They wanted to give me Methadone. Seriously. I don’t care if it would’ve fixed me, I will not take that.
Klonopin and Mirapex stave off my disease, but nothing makes me sleep.
Ambien and Lunesta have lost their power.
It’s the demons in the night.
self-doubt
guilt
fear
we need a pill
for demons
Have I ever said to you that you write like an angel?
“The little light behind my brain begins to glow, its heat flowing through me, warm and wonderful and wonderful
and wonderful.”
beautiful and exactly how it feels.
Well thank you
I dont feel like an angel though.
Especially not in the middle of the early morning night.
Actually, those pills do indeed chase those demons away.
Sometimes I just wake up but I feel OK and just have some cereal
and go back to sleep later.
When its the black dogs I’m like
“I got something for you buddy.”
No one appreciates a good longish sleep like an insomniac.
It’s something to be celebrated and announced to the world!
Man, that’s rough.
I’ve been lucky in that I only have very infrequent bouts of insomnia (maybe once or twice a year), but when I do they’re really, really rough. But I also seem to be one of those people that doesn’t require all that much sleep; after 5-6 my brain just snaps on, fully alert for another day.
However, my body responds to benadryl likes it’s Rohypnol, so every cold season I end up napping a lot.
Good luck, my good sir.
See my system laughs at Benedryl.
I should have added that really, this only happens maybe 2-3 times a month.
I have plenty of days when I sleep just fine.
Oh, man, that’s anticlimactic, though I’m happy for you, Jim. I really do have trouble sleeping pretty much about 5 nights out of 7, and have for most of my entire life. Though I do think if I had to choose between difficulty falling asleep (I routinely toss, turn and drive myself crazy for 2-3 hours after going to bed) vs. staying asleep, I’d choose the former, so I’m glad it’s not happening to you every single night.
And I should add too that I hate Ambien. I’ve only taken it twice and both times I did not fall asleep at all that entire night, but the day after I was virtually in a narcoleptic coma. WTF?!
I know, I know.
You know how writing is.
I meant that I only have that black dog awful thought attack where
I’m like “I’m outta here” and grab the wine and Ambien
and knock myself out.
Thank God it’s not two or there times a week
because then of course, the wine and Ambien would stop working.
I worked in rehabs young so I heard all the horror stories
of twenty Valium a day and still cant rest.
Benedryl makes RLS and PLMD and the Cramping Thing They Haven’t Named Yet worse times ten.
I avoid even writing the word, ordinarily.
Once again with the exisentials of life
Often one fix screws up something else
jmb,
I have noticed the very same thing, time and time again!
i spent at least one of my six years
in madrid in cyclical weekly-frenzied
alc-induced marginal consciousness,
staying out til 6 am at least two or
three nights a week
sunday would come, and i couldn’t
sleep, and would wonder why,
lying there with the fantods,
the next morning wondering
where these quarter-moons
came from swinging under my eyes
eventually i moved back and have
been sleeping with much normalcy
since. drinking with irregularity,
timidity, and getting about 8 hours a night
now i fully realize the the value
of sleep as it relates to good health
and consistent thinking
and warding off the fantods
so yeah, i can understand. alcohol
fecks up yer sleep. there’s a new
herbal remedy called Sedinal that’s
a mixture of valerian with two other
herbs, said to fix insomia in 98% of
(at least) one doctor’s patients.
so says bottom line’s health monthly
but i really think insomia is a kind of
stomach-level symptom of there being
something amiss in the information
age, with all this random data floating
in our noggins, that we don’t know
properly how to filter out the excess
and lie there in blanketed peace
instead, clinging to our egos chattering
a stream of blithering.
this had a balanced mix of drug names,
effects, lyrics and personal observation.
also, gregorian and buddhist chants couples with deep breathing work really well for me if the ego-cling or fantods clutch me tight-like
ps- gregorian and buddhist chants coupled with deep breathing work really well for me if the ego-cling or fantods clutch me tight-like
ahhhh, shite. please delete my second and fourth comments (this one), por favor 11:59.
gratzie.
It fit well with the piece so I’ll leave them.
Sedinal? I’ll look it up.
I’ve taken Valerian to no avail.
Your prose was very cool.
Fantods and black dogs
barking me down
We just need an off switch for our brains.
“One more sip of wine washing over the bitter pill stashed beneath my tongue…”
A direct stream of hot milk from the left teet of a goat named Beulla 30 min before bed is supposed to work like a charm.
Until 2006 I slept like an angel every night of my life. I get mixed up with a bunch of writers and now I’ve caught the dreaded insomnia. I had no idea it was contagious.
If only I had a goat…
… named Beulla.
Figures.
I’ve got a goat named Maudine.
What about celery and lettuce?
If I mashed it up really good and drank it?
This may be my favorite thing you’ve written. Raw and powerful and I want to sprinkle sleep dust in your curly hair but alas, I am no fairy.
Oh Ducky….
This was a fluff piece.
A toss-off.
Ooh, sleep dust - you have some?
You could be a fairy but like a
Graffiti Bridge fairy.
This is far too visceral to be fluff. You take that back.
A Graffiti Bridge fairy? I like that. I must find my wand.
Fluff can be visceral.
Ask Sabbath.
Meet you under the bridge.
I loved this. Why do so many people suffer from insomnia? How will evolution handle this? In the past I think it would have selected insomniacs out of the population, but we’ve got everything stirred up now with medication and varying socioeconomics.
In any case, I am one of the damned. It began innocently enough in high school, when I realized my interior clock wanted me to stay up til 3 and wake up at 10. Which doesn’t work for most other people and jobs. Later I noticed every time I went to bed is when my brain shifted into high gear. So a few years ago my doctor gave me some Ambien. I started with once a week, after my late night basketball game, when I could never sleep. But I’d never had drugs of any kind other than alcohol, and I grew to like that hallucination high I’d get before sleep. And over time I got stuck on it. Couldn’t sleep without it. It still helped me sleep, but I’d only feel the high when I mixed it with alcohol. Bad news, that. I do shit I can’t remember. Text and call people and don’t remember. Bad bad.
So recently I let the prescription expire, and I slept fine without it. I was surprised, since the first few times I tried I worried so much I couldn’t sleep. Now I just said fuck it, and I slept fine. Maybe it hasn’t been working for a while now, the Ambien. All I know is that high isn’t worth it anymore. The stuff is great if you can use it sparingly. If you can’t, stay away.
Man, that’s it exactly.
See I took Ambien and then it quit working unless
I chase it with a little alcohol.
And when I say “Oh who cares” I sleep fine.
Chinese handcuffs.
I think it’s because we keep our brains
so over-stimulated through the day
it’s nearly impossible to shut down at night.
I agree with you, James. It’s a form of toxicity.
One hundred years ago people
worked hard all day and slept 12 hours a night.
We haven’t evolved to need less sleep though
we’ve just gotten crazier
and more subterranealy frantic
and dependent on caffeine and sleeping pills
and antidepressants.
Ask old timers a cure for insomnia and they’ll
tell you
Dig post holes.
See, I have never stayed up long enough to feel any hallucinatory or otherwise druggy effects from Ambien. I usually put it in my mouth when I’m already in bed.
I have no desire to take it for recreation. As far as I know, it just makes me go to sleep, then wake up. I am totally unaware of any other effect.
I think it’s amazing how differently that drug effects different people. If I were really ambitious, and a doctor, I would try to figure out why.
That’s it.
Each person has a different reaction.
I have a friend that’s been taking .5 Xanax for years
and says it still works just fine.
Everyone has different chemistry and genetics.
My wife took Ambien once
and saw ghost children.
Ben’s pillows were plotting his murder.
Geez, no one knows any of the songs?
So much for my treasure hunt.
Hint: One of them is Motley Crue.
I’ve had Mr. Brownstone in my head since reading that line. Cathchiest GnR chorus ever. And I picked up on the Cure one, but can’t remember the name of the track. It’s on the B side of the one with Killing an Arab on it.
Sleep is rarely a problem, because I keep a steady stream of Cannabis Indica in my blood.
A Forest….
Yes, my most favorite Cure song -
Into the Trees…
And Mr. Brownstone is my second favorite GnR song.
Nightrain.
God, I love the Cure. I’ve yet to outgrow them. I have a secret wish to be Robert Smith.
I thought you wanted to David Bowie.
Cannabis can keep you from getting into REM state. Not that I know this first hand, or anything.
Side one of Seventeen Seconds is one of my favorite sleep tapes.
I used to listen to that everynight before bed.
This was beautifully written. I loved the poetry interspersed throughout. Monkeyhands write good prose.
The only time I have trouble sleeping is when I’m pregnant. Since I do not intend to ever be pregnant again, I also do not intend to ever have sleep trouble ever again. There, I’ve gone and jinxed myself now.
I am the owl
& the monkeyhands too
Sleep is slippery
watch the jinx
I had the thought once of query-ing
an entire book written on Ambien.
That would make good reading, I’d bet. I’ve never taken a sleeping aid aside from whisky, so I can’t banter much. I am fascinated, though. I’d be too chicken to try - especially after reading that one post from Irene about Victor’s behavior on the plane!
wow, your piece is amazing. i love the way you sprinkle poetry/lyrics throughout. it’s trippy in that getting-no-sleep sort of way.
i don’t usually have a problem sleeping, but when i do i freak out about it (i had long bought of insomnia as a kid, and present day wakefulness brings back all the anxiety). when i go through rough patches, unable to turn my brain off, i take two unisom, which like you said is basically benadryl. the weird thing is it makes me sweat profusely. like i’ll wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. weird.
and i’ve heard that about ambien. my friend said when she took it, she hallucinated seeing her dead grandmother. ::shiver::
Well thanks.
You think of stuff in the middle of the night that
you would never waste time on during the day.
My wife took Ambien and saw ghost twins with curly hair and pale blue eyes.
You have the best Gravitar by the way.
Lovely.
aw thanks!
I bet you’d stop putting your jammies in the freezer if you quit taking your ambien with alcohol and went to bed immediately after you swallowed it.
When I had my first bout of insomnia about a year and a half ago–real insomnia, lasting weeks–I finally, as you did, broke down and went to the doctor for the good stuff.
I got trazodone first. Take it, stay up for an hour (or until you find it difficult to walk straight), go to bed, wake up 8-10 hours later, then sit on the edge of the bed for 15 minutes because when you stand, you nearly vomit on your slippers.
Then it was Ambien. I’ve never needed anything else. I was very leery. I asked the doctor about the Ambien zombies and mentioned that I was neurotic and not altogether predictable even when I was sober and well-rested. I told him I didn’t feel altogether comfortable turning off my judgment. It barely keeps my ID at bay as it is. “How real is the danger I will find myself naked in the Taco Bell drive-thru?” I asked.
About 1% real, he told me. And in many of those cases, people either mixed their Ambien with alcohol or stayed up, moving around, and were not in bed when their brains checked out.
And that’s the thing with Ambien. It doesn’t actually put you to sleep. It just interferes with your brain chemistry so you can’t think. The idea being that, with you brain switched off, you will fall asleep. That’s why it doesn’t make you feel groggy–it doesn’t actually interfere with physiological sleep like most of the others.
Anyway. It could be that your brain is switching off while you’re still “up.” Either because you’re actually up or because the alcohol in your blood is preventing you from really falling asleep.
Then again, you do appear to be the expert. And I know damn well, even from my brief but frightening experience, that what an insomniac wants is sleep. Not advice on sleeping.
Good luck and sweet dreams.
ah your story was good.
I’ve been taking Ambien like, eight years.
A doctor buddy suggested I take it with a wee bit of alcohol
to magnify the effects.
He also said I could try grapefruit juice
which I havent gotten around to yet.
Pajamas in the freezer is kinda fun.
Grapefruit juice?
I feel like that’s supposed to make sense to me, but it doesn’t.
Grapefruit increases the absorbency of substance into the liver.
I have a bout of insomnia maybe once a month. I hate it. Tossing and turning, unable to sleep, is one of the most frustrating experiences I know. I usually give up at some point and accept the inevitable.
After my accident, when I was hospitalized for six weeks, I was given Halcion every night, and, man did it do the trick. I never knew there could be a sleeping pill that effective. It’s a wonder I didn’t become an addict.
I hope and trust that you’re sleeping well as I hit “add comment.”
What was that - 220 am?
Ah I was probably settling in, reading a bit.
what’s insane was back wen I took nothing
and I would wake up and lay there an hour or so and
say screw it I’ll push through and then all day you would just be worn out.
Awake for sleep time
and sleepy during wake time
is just torture.
Luke just figured out Boss Hogg has been
aligned with Voorhies the whole time.
Roscoe let it slip.
Ah, so you’re working on the screenplay in lieu of counting sheep? I’ve never found that sort of remedy to be very effective.
Loved the poetry interspersed through this piece. Completely wonderful read. Grad school is screwing with my sleep patterns, so I may need to refer back to this for advice.
Grad school is when it started getting bad for me!
Partly the horrific approach of the real world.
Or the anticipation of it.
Still havent quite hit real world.
Thanks, most of the poetry are song lyrics
Music helps in the desperate hours…
My problem? Going to bed. I never want to go to bed, but I know I need to go to bed. And once I’m in bed and asleep, I’m generally okay. My wife and I got into Lunesta last year, but most of it was related to travel.
I’m also sort of a combination of the two polarities: a night owl and and an early bird. I like being up late and I like getting up early. I also like eight or nine hours of sleep (who doesn’t?). But of course it doesn’t tend to work out that way.
I wrote this thinking about the Brad Listi sleep scandal of 09
and Irene’s story about Victor.
Lunesta is the best.a
oh man. i wish you hadn’t put that little paragraph of people who died trying to sleep. it makes me worried about you. please don’t die trying to sleep.
Don’t fret Lenore
its creative nonfiction.
I only take sleeping pills like twice a week now maybe
and the wine thing maybe once or twice a month.
I’m touched that you worry about me though.
For a split second I pictured a TNB intervention
bursting through my door except
you would really know where to look
or who to look for.
That was a splendid thought.
Loved this! Take it back that it was a toss off. Or just toss them off more.
I too battle with occasional sleeplessness & used to get prescription pills from a friend. Lunesta’s good, Ambien’s better. Have you tried half a pill? that will lessen the hallucinatory effects.
I’m currenly living with five hundred 21 year olds at, so sleeping through the night is impossible.
Coping strategies include wine, Tylenol PM, day napping and occasionally giving in to the enemy.
Your friend wrote you a prescription?
everyone needs friend’s like that…
Half an Ambien with enough wine is fine.
I’m a chemist I tell you.
Ooh, Ooh, write a post about
giving in to the enemy.
That sounds salacious.
We never called it insomnia in the dorms
just too much fun stuff to do
to sleep.
Late to the ballgame, I am, but this is a terrific post…the skinny on the various drugs blended deftly with the late-night visions that read like Nostradamus quatrains.
Insomnia is awful — I hope you find something that works for you.
There is no late to the TNB party -
anytime is fine
Actually the stuff I take now works pretty fine -
just every now and then you know.
that would be a great jacket blurb
JM Blaine is the new Nostradamus!
I could be like, Mostradanus.